


Angels

by LucyFlawless



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance, Science, no slow burn or pining bc they are adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 07:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4011652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyFlawless/pseuds/LucyFlawless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Cho meets Sam when he falls from the sky. In which Dr. Helen Cho is a badass and Sam Wilson is a super sweetheart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angels

“This will hurt a lot,” says Dr. Cho, while setting up the program. Sam Wilson is the one supine on her table now, a gash in his lower back from skidding to the ground after a particularly bad attack with aliens. 

“Doc, it already hurts a lot,” says Sam, to which Dr. Cho chuckles. Yes, Sam’s drifting on a calm sea of morphine, but when you fall from the sky it’s going to hurt no matter what. “Do you need me to do any swabs for my DNA or anything?”

“Oh no, Mr. Wilson, my technology has surpassed salves and swabs,” says Dr. Cho.

“I’m sorry, I trust you, but I’ve been hurt before,” he grimaces as a tremor of pain goes through him. “I guess I just haven’t been fixed like this before.”

Natasha is standing upright next to Dr. Cho, but Sam can see how her eyes are flickering back and forth from the monitor to his face. Steve Rogers – his friend, Captain America! says the voice of Sam’s five year old self – is wondering around the medical room, fidgeting, putting his hands on his hips, through his hair, leaning on various things—

Crash.

“If you’re going to stay here, maybe stay still, Captain Rogers,” says Dr. Cho, nudging Sam slightly to move him as Steve Rogers shamefacedly picks up the fallen medical instruments. “Don’t worry about them,” she says, not unkindly, but not looking away from Sam. She says something in Korean to an attendant. The man smiles at Cap, waving away Steve’s red-faced apologies before taking the bowl of instruments from him, and whisks them away.

“God, Rogers,” says Natasha, rolling her eyes. “You were stuck with all those needles and you can’t handle a little organ regrowth?”

“It’s not the same, Natasha!” says Steve, immediately. He’s gone out of Sam’s eye line, but he has a feeling the man is pointing his finger at Natasha decisively. “Sam fell from the sky – ”

“Did it hurt when you fell?” says Dr. Cho whispers to Sam as she leans over him, setting the 3-D printer up over his wound. 

“What?” says Sam, as Natasha snaps, as if from far away, “Don’t point your finger at me like that, Cap! I know he fell, I was there!”

“When you fell from heaven – did it hurt?” she whispers, a smile twitching at her lips as she raises her eyebrows innocently at him. 

Sam actually laughs at that, a real burst of laughter before wincing as the printer starts up, causing Natasha and Steve to quiet their quarrel and go to his side. Yes, he’d had a warning, but damn.

“Sam,” says Steve, eyes wide. “Are you okay?”

“Urggh – no worries, Cap. Dr. Cho told me it was going to hurt but – man.”

“Call me Helen. You’re going to be fine,” says Dr. Cho softly. “Only a few painful minutes more and you’ll be good as new.” Sam is fine with Steve and Natasha being here – he’s not one to panic, but he did fall, and having people fuss over him helps keep him from reliving it. 

But Dr. Cho – Helen – is a cool column of calm, and so it’s her face, as she monitors his progress, that he keeps his eye on. This means he’s staring at her a little too intensely when she looks up at him, but instead of turning away, she returns his gaze with equal force. Sam is the one who ends up feeling self-conscious, turning away as the printing finishes. 

“It’s like when Harry regrew his bones in the second Harry Potter book,” he overhears Steve whispering to Natasha.

“Less Tumblr, more going outside and meeting real people,” whispers back Natasha.

“I got that from a book club,” says Steve defensively.

“What book club are you a part of, Rogers?”

Steve mumbles something about mole women who missed the past fifteen years as Sam’s pain lessens. 

“You’re done, Mr. Wilson,” says Helen, even as the last vestiges of pain echo through him. “I recommend taking it easy for a couple hours.”

As Steve helps ease him up, Sam laughs. “It’s Sam. And, just a couple hours? After you regrew my skin? I’m fine with that, that’s amazing. You’re amazing, Dr. Cho.”

“I know, but thank you,” says Helen, so Sam’s grinning as he stands. She stays back as Sam slowly puts his shirt back on. “And like I said, it’s Helen,” she adds, and Sam swears she bites her lip as he finally pulls his shirt down. 

“I’ll bring the car around so you don’t have to walk through this parking lot,” says Natasha. Steve looks like he wants to stick around, but she drags him along with her. “Come on, Cap, he’s not going to get better if you baby him.” 

Sam goes about putting his watch back on, and starts on his shoes as he hears Steve grumble after Natasha, “I don’t see how physically carrying him out of here would be babying him.”

Sam rolls his eyes as he ties up his sneakers. By the time Sam stands up, ready to go,  
Helen’s done speaking in Korean to another attendant – they’re not attendants, Sam knows, but he struggles to remember what they’re actually called. 

“Well, it was nice meeting you, Sam,” says Helen, putting out a hand. How does she look that good dressed like a space nurse? “I wish it had been under better circumstances.”

Sam shakes her hand. “Actually,” he says. “We’ve met before. Steve introduced us at Tony’s party.” He remembers this very well. Steve had said, “She basically rebuilt Hawkeye, Sam,” and she’d gone, “Oh, no. No!” Then, with a quirk of her lips: “Just his left side, at the most.” 

“That’s right,” she gasps, looking chagrined. “Sorry, I guess I was just…distracted…”

“I mean, Thor is pretty amazing.”

“I suppose,” says Helen diplomatically. “But when I asked him about Jane Foster’s research, he had no idea what I was saying.”

Sam laughs, and it feels a little less foolish when he says, “Do you want to get dinner tomorrow night?”

She actually does look surprised, so he explains, “I would say tonight, but I’m recovering from a bad fall.”

“Hah,” says Helen. Her mouth twists into an adorable shape, as if she’s thinking. Sam can tell she’s not thinking. “Okay. Yes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, yes. That sounds great,” she says, and her smile’s a little wider and a little less professional.

“Is 7 okay?”

\---

It’s 6, and Helen is already ready. She went for a deep blue dress that cuts sharp lines along her body, and her dangling bronze DNA earrings. She is ready early because she likes to be ready early; it gives her time to watch TV and ease into herself before she gets a cab. 

Of course, the main thing on TV is Sam Wilson. She indulges herself, involuntarily blushing as she watches the man smile, while the news assures he’s doing well thanks to her research. They show an old clip of her and her technology, which is fine, totally fine. Not like there’s been significant updates since Vision or anything. She rolls her eyes.

But they also show his accident from yesterday, and Helen sucks in a breath as the man she’s going to meet for dinner plummets too fast to the ground. Vision attempts to help him, but he grabs a wing, and it cracks and snaps.

She replays that image over and over again in her head as she gets a cab from the Avengers tower to the restaurant, where Sam is waiting for her. Sam is waiting outside for her, wearing a jacket and shirt that, ah, fit him very well. Sometimes the Avengers are so boring, all they wear is fratty casual wear when they have the physique for suits. Something warm uncoils in her chest when she sees his grin widen just for her. 

“Hey,” he says softly. “You’re here.” 

“You need better wings,” she blurts out, as he puts his hand on her back while they walk in.

“You know this is a date, right? I didn’t ask you for a medical consult,” says Sam, his grin turning wry as he leans towards her. 

“Sam, I saw you on the news,” says Helen, unrelentingly as he opens the door for her. “I saw the way you fall. And the way those wings work, they’re not strong enough on their own.”

“Tell me about it,” says Sam, before smiling at the hostess, who blushes and nods before checking the Falcon’s reservation. “Lucky that you were around.”

“I don’t want to have to be around,” says Helen. At his look, “To rebuild you,” she explains.

“But you have the technology!” he says, quoting The Six Million Dollar Man. She snorts with laughter.

“They showed reruns of that show in Korea all the time,” says Helen, rolling her eyes. 

“It’s nice to hang out with someone who gets my references.” He smiles at her, and not even the devil could resist smiling back. It shouldn’t surprise her how much she enjoys it – but it’s so nice to be around someone who smiles so easily. 

After a waitress seats them, she returns to her original discussion.

“Your wings should be stronger on their own,” she points out. “They can’t be ripped off or broken that easily, but they should have some kind of kick in mechanism to prevent you from falling like that.”

“I thought you were a biomedical engineer,” says Sam, wide-eyed.

“I have an engineering master’s. I had to build half of what’s in my lab myself!” says Helen. As Sam laughs, Helen adds, “What? Are you intimidated?”

“Oh, definitely,” he says, grinning. Helen laughs, grateful he can run with her punches.

“Well, I also have an MBA. I mean, I do run my own business,” she says, blushing as Sam’s laughter dies down a little as he looks at her a little in awe. Yes, she gets it all the time. No, it never stops feeling good, especially from someone like Sam. The man is pure sunshine. She feels holy in his light.

“Well, uh,” he says, breaking their gaze as a waiter approaches them. “Do you want to order? I think I’m ready.”

“Oh, no, this is very overwhelming. You can just order for me?” says Helen, looking over the market vegetables. “We can eat family style.”

“Alright, sounds good,” he says at her nod. She smiles as he orders for them; everything about him feels almost too easy – he’s so kind, so warm, so direct. And, thank God, he even orders them some wine, which Helen is very grateful for. It’s been that kind of week.

“I am not finished with you,” she says, taking a sip. 

“I hope not.”

“I’m going to work on those wings,” she says. She peers at him. “I could grow you some,” she says simply.

“Out of what?”

“Organic matter? Maybe with metal fasteners?” she says evenly. “Just like Vision.”

“How exactly does he fly, by the way?” says Sam. “If he’s made from organic matter, why doesn’t he need to flap any wings?”

“He uses the same air heating acceleration as Thor does,” says Helen, shrugging. “The air is hotter below him than the air above him, that’s how they are lifted up. I’m not exactly sure how he does it – he’d have to generate a significant amount of energy for that – but it probably has to do with that Asgardian infinity gem.”

“Seriously?” says Sam, throwing a hand up as Helen frowns and nods. “What’s with Asgard and infinity gems?”

“I don’t know!” she says, grateful to finally have someone who also sees this. “Why would you put immense power in a small jewel? How is that in any way efficient?” She finished off her wine, and as Sam topped her off, she continued, “But while I don’t trust Tony Stark to make any robots,” – they both grimaced – “Jarvis, as an AI, was really impeccable at accommodation, so it’s no wonder he would adapt to the new body as best he could as well.”

“No, for you,” says Helen. “It wouldn’t make sense to make huge changes when you fly so well. But we could add in a safety chip that activates a bird protocol, something embedded in those wings already.”

“And what would that be?”

“You’re called the Falcon,” she says, scribbling on what she now realizes is too fancy of a napkin for her to be doing that. “but your wings are more gliders than actual wings. They’re like batwings.”

“Well, Batman was already taken,” says Sam, watching her sketch. 

“That’s a terrible name anyway. I like Falcon better anyway, it’s awe-inspiring.”

“Thank you,” says Sam, as their food arrives. “I didn’t come up with that, but I am fine taking credit for it.” At the look on the waiter’s face, he says, “She’s making a big scientific discovery. You’ll brag about it later.”

“No worries,” says the waiter, and attempts to look at what Helen’s drawing. She covers it up and frowns at him until he leaves.

“I don’t trust anyone with this design,” says Helen, tucking her napkin away and taking the one Sam proffers to her. 

“Not even Tony Stark? He worked on the pararescue design,” says Sam, in a voice that says he’s not really asking, but wants to know why. 

“He makes weapons, and he’s just an engineer,” says Helen, slightly dismissive. 

“That is literally the first time I’ve ever heard Tony Stark called just an engineer.”

“He’s a really good engineer!” says Helen quickly. “But he can’t build the kind of wings I want to make. It’s too complicated for engineering, not even if he stayed up for months and created them all himself and had his new AI print them.”

“No,” says Helen, nibbling on truffle asparagus thoughtfully. “I can print something more delicate than anything Iron Man could even conceive of.”

“I mean, you’re basically the one who built Vision in the first place.”

“I know, right?” 

“I mean, that’s what I keep telling every reporter who asks me about him.”

“Oh, thank you! Ah, I just realized I’ve just been talking about science this whole time,” says Helen. “Also, I am very happy with all these choices.”

“Good! But, no, you’ve only been talking about me this whole time. Does this mean I get to talk about you now?”

“Go ahead, I could hear people talking about me all the time, as long as it’s good.”

He asks her about her multiple degrees. She asks him about how he got into the army. He tells her about his work at the VA. He asks her about who she was in high school, and tells her about his school band’s foreign exchange program in Prague. She tells him about her tennis obsession, and that one time she argued with a ref for a full half hour, and asks about his therapy golden lab. They keep asking each other questions, right through dinner, right through dessert, right through their cab back to the Avengers tower and as they stay up late drinking the chilled wine Vision and Tony’s new AI Friday left out for them. 

“You know,” he tells her. “Sometimes it is so strange being here. In this tower. Around the Avengers.” 

“Surely you aren’t intimidated. They’ve got nothing on you,” she says, feeling protective. 

“I don’t know about that – Cap and Natasha are really something else,” he says sweetly, and Helen nearly bites her tongue off, remembering their friendship.

“Sorry – they both seem wonderful. I guess I just think of you as one of them.”

“So do a lot of people, but…I’m not a…god or anything.”

“No, you’re an angel,” says Helen, leaning forward. 

They make out like teenagers on the couch before curling up together and falling asleep. Friday wakes them up before the rest of the Avengers, somehow knowing they’d like to stay discreet. They scurry back to their own rooms, leaving each other kisses in their wake.

\--

Later, much later, when Helen is in a helicarrier, patching up Hawkeye again (literally he needs a ton more armor, that sleevelessness is just arrogance), she watches Sam hit mid-flight. Her heart still catches in her throat, but she’s glad to see the wings activate, flapping even as he’s unconscious. 

And ultimately they return him to her safely, which was her plan all along.

**Author's Note:**

> I secretly hope this pairing will gain traction throughout the fandom. Come on, guys. She's smart and he's sweet. What else could you want from a fic? 
> 
> Also, that science is based on article I wrote on the Science of Superheroes.


End file.
